So like, a more childish Code Geass?
It's Sunrise too!
It is always great to have handdrawn mecha battles and all, and visually, I am satisfied, but as for the story, it was okay but nothing special. Kid meets mascot and gains the ability to fight against the really obvious baddies.
But hey, it's the first episode, and as an original anime, there is plenty space to grow (and slip up of course). A couple of new main characters, and probably will get bad guys with more depth than your early-story bandits.
So yeah, let's see where it goes.
I know its on a completely different spectrum and I doubt there is as much inspiration, but we just came off a season with Sonny Boy, a masterpiece original anime, so yeah, definitely on that positive-bias-towards-original-anime-train right now.